FIRS test-running e-Tax clearance certification system to end fake tax certificates

Very soon, cases of fake and fraudulent tax clearance certificates both for individuals and corporate bodies will be a thing of the past.

This is stemming from a new digital platform, electronic Tax Clearance Certificate (eTCC)   being test run by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to replace the manual Tax Clearance Certification system.

Director of ICT at FIRS, Mr. Kola Okunola, who revealed the development in a presentation at the just concluded training by Journalism.com Ltd., in collaboration with FIRS, said the implementation of the e-TCC verification system had reached an advanced stage.

He disclosed in an interview that the platform was undergoing user’s acceptance test before deployment to production.

He said “TCC will be out in the next four weeks. It will provide an e-repository of all TCCs issued by FIRS.

“It will enable FIRS Staff and authorised third parties to verify tax clearance certificates, thereby reducing the incidence of fraudulent certificates.

“It automatically sends Tax Clearance Certificates to the emails of taxpayers and also enables them to request for and print their TCCs online,’’Okunola said.

According to him, the service recently commenced modalities for implementation of robust VAT automation mechanism for power, telecommunications, e-commerce, financial services, oil and  gas, insurance, major hotels, malls and hospitality sectors of the economy.